Nigeria: Dangote refinery granted license to process 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day

Aliko Dangote announced that his refinery had obtained a license to refine more than 300,000 barrels of Nigerian crude per day, and that it should start processing gasoline in the near future.

In an interview at the Saudi-Nigerian Business Roundtable in Riyadh, Dangote stressed, "We don't want to start our refinery with foreign products, we want to start with Nigerian crude."

He added: "We're more than ready, and you'll soon be seeing our gasoline products", expressing confidence in the refinery's imminent start of production.

Despite falling short of its initial production target in August, Dangote remains optimistic about the refinery's operational start-up, giving priority to supplying Nigeria with gasoline before considering exports to other regions, notably West Africa.

According to NewsNow, the Dangote oil refinery was importing crude oil and was expecting its first shipment in about two weeks' time, as revealed by Devakumar Edwin, Executive Director of the Dangote Group.

Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, which trades crude oil on behalf of Nigeria, had previously outsourced its crude to other entities, as Edwin revealed in an interview with S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Dangote did not reveal the entities receiving the oil company's crude. However, in August, NNPCL announced a $3 billion crude oil loan agreement with the African Export-Import Bank.

The refinery, with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day, is expected to produce 27 million liters of diesel, 11 million liters of kerosene and nine million liters of jet fuel, receiving crude from various Nigerian producers and the country's national oil company. Aliko Dangote's fortune is estimated at $16.2 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Nigeria's oil production rose by 60,000 barrels a day last month to 1.49 million barrels a day, the highest output in almost two years.

The country has introduced a new crude grade called Nembe as part of a joint venture to further increase its oil production. The Nembe crude stream will be managed and marketed by a joint venture between Nigeria's state-owned National Petroleum Company (NNPC) and Aiteo Eastern E&P Co. Ltd.

Overcoming challenges such as crude oil theft and pipeline attacks in the Niger Delta, which have hampered Nigeria's ability to meet its quota, remains a priority for the Nigerian government to meet its revenue targets.